I was getting my breath back but it wasn't easy, it was taking time. A lot had been happening and I think I must have hit my head on the ground somewhere along the line because the fading light of the day was still fluttering, vibrating in slow waves, while I tried to get a grip on things mentally — had they heard him scream, down there in the camp? If they had, they would have thought it was me, screaming for mercy, would have or might have, the difference was very great, potentially lethal, because if they'd heard the scream and hadn't thought it was me, they'd have jumped into a jeep and would be on their way here now.
He rolled over suddenly, my bold revolutionary, and started vomiting, which I'd been expecting him to do: the knee strike had been to the coccyx and I'd done it twice and the nerve centre there would be a conflagration now, giving him so much pain that he couldn't be more than half conscious, forget the rush of user-friendly endorphins when that area's been hit, you're strictly on your own. I was surprised he hadn't passed out by now and he could do it at any time but I couldn't trust that, daren't rely on it, a man like this would have formidable reserves.
Think: were they on their way, because of the scream? That would be conclusive, the odds unacceptable, so don't waste thought on it, there were other questions: what had they thought of the shots, the bursts of fire, the two bursts, more than an execution required? If they'd thought there was trouble of some kind they would be — once again — in their jeep by now and on their way here. The answer was the same: it would be conclusive, finis. So don't waste thought on that one either.
He'd finished vomiting but the air was putrid and I moved away a little, observing him. His face was bloodless under the dirt, his eyes closed; his breathing was steady but faint, his chest hardly moving. The assault rifle was lying near him, but not near enough for him to reach it before I could if I saw him move.
He began moaning now and I hated that: a scream I can handle because it's simply the sound of shock, but a moan is a plea for help and I couldn't help him.
He's one of the people who blows the legs off little children.
Well said, and timely.
Think, keep thinking. How long would it be before they came out here to see why these two hadn't returned, performed the execution and returned?
Not long.
I crawled towards the man and lay close to him, put my mouth to his ear.
'What will happen on the nineteenth?'
He didn't answer.
There would be a case, there would be a case here of inflicting further pain on him, if I thought it would impress him, persuade him to answer me, and it would have been acceptable for me to do that, to further traumatize this blower-of-the-legs-off-little-children; but it wouldn't physically be possible: pain was already roaring in him, and there was nothing I could add that he would feel.
Fear, then, of death? I felt for his throat. 'What will happen on the nineteenth?'
It would be nice to have something to debrief to Pringle, Flockhart, something perhaps conclusive: a Pol Pot attack on the capital, an assassination attempt on the king, something I could call information, which was what I was here for, putting more pressure on this man's windpipe, letting him think of death, using both thumbs and working inward — and then he moved and I was fighting off a claw-hand strike to the eyes and going down and rolling over, blocking a fist and forcing a heel-palm to the nose and missing, feeling the slickness of blood as the skin came away, my breath coming short as he struck again and the fear of death was mine, not his, until I found purchase for my left shoulder and drove a half-fist into the larynx and felt the cartilage snap and he reeled sideways and dropped, dropped like a sack with blood creeping from the corner of his mouth.
I got up and stumbled across the stones, found my way to the nearest jeep, my own, and dragged out two bottles of Evian water and went over to the other jeep and found the key still in the ignition, here was the trick, the point of no return: I hadn't got the strength to make my way out through the mountains on foot — they'd be here soon now, wanting to know why their comrades hadn't returned.
The engine fired at once and I took the thing through the gears as quietly as I could. The Chinese-built vehicle was larger than mine, would be faster — but they'd hear it from the camp, I knew that, would think for a moment that the jeep was on its way back until they heard the sound fading — then they would react. It was simply a question of time, and I shifted into overdrive as soon as the engine could take it, pushing the speed up and switching on the headlights as the track began turning through the hills.
With one hand I tore the cap off a bottle of water and took swigs at it and then washed the dried spittle off my face, flicking my eyes across the three mirrors in turn as the track straightened and ran between boulders for half a mile and then began twisting and rising, the bottle of water empty now and the mirrors still dark, the waxing moon afloat in the southern sky and the rim of the mountains lying in waves below it, touched here and there by its reflection on flat rock.
The jeep lost traction sometimes over the loose shale, skating at an angle and coming back as I shifted gears to get control; there were something like fifteen degrees of play in the steering box and it was tricky to keep this brute from Beijing on course. I was using third gear now, because -
Lights.
In the left-hand mirror, fanning between the hills behind and below me, flashing once as they came directly in line and then fading, blacked-out suddenly by a turn in the track. They would belong to a vehicle leaving the camp: all traffic on this route was strictly Khmer Rouge.
The major road to Pouthisat was still some way ahead, two miles, two and a half, and there wasn't a single chance of driving out of this. Their lights were in the right-hand mirror now, flashing again as they lined up, brighter this time. The crew on board had already found my jeep standing there and this one gone; they might have stopped long enough to take a look around and seen the two soldiers lying there among the rocks. They would therefore be driving flat out and with purpose, and even if I got to the major road before they did I'd be within range of their guns, finito.
The terrain was steeper here, with rifts and gullies filled with shadow in the peripheral glow of my lights, and I began watching for somewhere to ditch.
There might of course be nowhere — I might simply have to stop this thing and get out and walk, run, while there was time. Question: how long would it take those people behind me to raise the alarm and bring a search party of a hundred men here in packed transports, two hundred, five?
The jeep was skating again and I shifted down and got traction. Light came suddenly and in all three mirrors this time as the track ran straight for a while. They'd closed the distance by half, by more than half: their lights were throwing shadows now from the rear window of the jeep.
Then I saw the gully leading away from the track, deeper than a gully, a small ravine, and steep, and I waited until the lights behind me were blacked-out by the rocks and then wrenched the jeep into a spin with the power still on and sent it towards the slope, dousing the headlights and hitting the brakes and jumping clear with enough momentum left in the thing to take it to the bottom of the ravine.